The women are aspiring actresses but also directors and producers. They are screenwriters and camera operators, line editors and publicists.

Most of them never came close to likes of Harvey Weinstein. But they tell a familiar story. They were trying to break into the business; they met a man who set himself out as their personal savior; then he demanded sex.

In an instant, they were faced with this awful choice: Let it happen, or risk giving up a lifelong dream and everything they had worked years to achieve.

Summera Howell(Photo: Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY)

All of them say they grappled with their decision and its ramifications for years afterward.

Summera Howell is one of more than a dozen women who spoke to USA TODAY about the harassment she experienced.

She says nearly every woman she knows in the business has been affected by some form of harassment.

“For women in particular in the entertainment industry, not only do we have to work twice as hard to get half as far, but we also have to work with this constant fear that hinders us from doing our job and doing it well," Howell says. "Because every time you take a meeting, you have to face this question of: 'Is this going to be another man who drunkenly tries to kiss me? Is this going to be another guy who texts me non-stop about non-business-related things?' "

“And the answer all too frequently is yes. But you have to keep showing up. You can’t just stop existing in this industry you can’t just stop networking because if you do, you don’t exist.”

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Summera Howell knows first-hand how difficult it can be for women in the entertainment business to face an onslaught of possible harassment and abuse.

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Densmore grew up in Medford, Ore., in a modern family of divorced but friendly parents. They were lifelong politicians and educators: Her father served in the state Legislature, and her mother lobbied on behalf of national parks.

She always seemed to find herself on a stage. It began with ballet and gymnastics and progressed to elementary school performances and then community theater.

She never doubted she would be successful. At 16, she applied to the University of Southern California’s School of Dramatic Arts and skipped her senior year of high school to attend.

Megan Densmore(Photo: Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY)

After graduation, she found work as a barista in L.A. and trained to become a Pilates instructor while searching for an agent to help her get acting auditions.

“So, the jobs are, like, over on one side, and the actors are over on the other side,” Densmore says. “Now, if you’re an actor, how do you get over to the job?”

The answer in Hollywood is, almost always, an agent.

“So I sent out mailings. And I had no success,” she says. “And, then, I heard back from one agent.”

The fiftysomething man she met in the dingy office in September 2007 played the part of savior well. An expert name-dropper, he knew how to sell Hollywood expertise. He boasted about his time at one of the top talent agencies in the country.

Most importantly to Densmore, he made a point to mention that he represented a friend she knew from college. They were no longer close, but the familiarity went a long way in building trust.

“I was going to be discovered. I knew I was talented, and up until this point, I had this idea that someone was going to come in and save me,” she says. “Here’s this older, experienced man telling me, 'I’m going to do this for you, but you’re going to have to be in a relationship, date me, for these things to happen.' ”

After the phone call, they began spending more time together. They got Chinese takeout, went grocery shopping. There was no romance, she says, even when their relationship turned sexual.

She began to question what she was doing when she explained the relationship to friends and read the expressions on their faces. After two weeks, there was no sign of the partnership her agent had described.

“There was no talk of any auditions. There were all of these excuses about why that couldn’t happen yet. When I asked him, he didn’t have good answers.”

“I thought, 'Maybe he’ll respect me enough to have a professional relationship with me.' ” she said. “ I tried it; no thanks. I don’t remember being scared until realizing, 'Oh, that’s not an option he’s OK with.'”

Megan Densmore

It sank in one night as she sat on the floor of her tiny studio apartment watching Kevin Spacey as movie producer Buddy Ackerman sadistically torment a young studio assistant in Swimming With Sharks, one of her agent’s favorite films.

“I remember watching this movie and having an out-of-body experience,” she says. “It's literally about having an abusive Hollywood relationship."

At that point, Densmore says, she realized the domineering relationship was not what she wanted.

She decided to break it to him over the phone. She was clear: I want to keep our relationship strictly business.

He flew into a rage, she says, screaming that she was naïve for thinking he’d help her if she didn’t sleep with him.

“I thought, 'Maybe he’ll respect me enough to have a professional relationship with me.' I tried it; no thanks. I don’t remember being scared until realizing, 'Oh, that’s not an option he’s OK with.' ”

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Defenders of the casting couch argue that women have a choice — to trade on their sexuality, or not.

In an interview with The Times of London this month, Weinstein attorney Benjamin Brafman made the case.

Liz Kouri(Photo: Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY)

“If a woman decides that she needs to have sex with a Hollywood producer in order to advance her career and actually does it and finds the whole thing offensive, that’s not rape,” Brafman said. “You made a conscious decision that you’re willing to do something that is personally offensive in order to advance your career.”

But the women interviewed by USA TODAY say that argument ignores the power imbalance they face.

They describe a Catch-22 where they must put themselves in a potentially dangerous or uncomfortable situation or risk missing out on a rare and fleeting opportunity for professional advancement.

Liz Kouri says she was working as an actress when she met Harvey Weinstein at an opening party for an off-Broadway show in 1999.

Their conversation continued at an after-party, where, Kouri says, he challenged her to drink up before last call, then ushered her to a secluded area of the bar that resembled a library. She was making small talk and reached up for a book when she says he pinned her against a wall, pressing himself firmly up against her.

“His voice got low,” she says. “He was very clear. He had helped other actresses get major roles, and he would like to help me. He continued to press up on me and fumbled for his zipper. Then he put his hand up my skirt and pulled my panties over.”

Kouri says she froze as he put his fingers inside her and moved her hand to help him masturbate.

"I couldn't react,” she said. “I didn’t want to make him mad. I didn’t want to cause a scene. I didn’t want to rock the boat. I didn’t want to ruin any chances that I might have had at all to audition for him. Or my career."

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“He was very clear. He had helped other actresses get major roles, and he would like to help me. Then he put his hand up my skirt and pulled my panties over.”

When the encounter was over, Kouri says, Weinstein told her not to mention it to anyone and his assistant would be in touch.

But Kouri says she couldn’t bring herself to see him again, despite requests to meet at his hotel. She did not file a police report.

Nearly 20 years later, she wonders what could have been. If she had slept with him, would she be a successful actor? Did she ruin her chances at a Hollywood career?

“When somebody has that much power and that much influence and holds so much of your dreams in his…God in just one little finger, you don’t feel like you have any power,” she said.

“I thought, ‘Oh, I can go and be an actress on my own merits.' And in that moment, I realized that it wasn’t enough.”

Liz Kouri

“You feel like you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. You have to take that chance and take that opportunity because it’s not coming back. And if you don’t take it that’s your problem.”

Kouri said the experience “shattered” something inside her and left her questioning her own worth.

“I thought, ‘Oh, I can go and be an actress on my own merits,’ ” she says. “And in that moment, I realized that it wasn’t enough.”

Weinstein, who has been accused by more than 80 women of sexual harassment or assault, denied the allegations through his representative, Holly Baird. “Mr. Weinstein categorically denies ever engaging in any non-consensual sexual conduct with anyone,” Baird said in a statement to USA TODAY.

USA TODAY interviewed Kouri's sister, who says Kouri told her about the alleged encounter shortly after she says it occurred.

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Densmore’s agent was no Harvey Weinstein.

He worked in a boutique agency, typical of hundreds of small talent operations that fill Los Angeles.

He was the junior agent, managing new clients as his boss eased into retirement and maintained a roster mostly of TV actors and actresses with recurring roles.

Desnmore recalls trying to make a clean break with him back in 2007.

“This is when I saw what a terrible person I'd become involved with.”

Megan Densmore

But he had her headshot photos, and she didn’t have the money to get them reshot.

He told her to meet him at the office that night if she wanted them.

When she arrived, Densmore says, he continued to berate her and threw the CD of images close to her head.

"I have never seen someone so angry," Densmore says. "This is when I saw what a terrible person I'd become involved with."

Densmore says he instructed her to turn around and bend over on her knees. He tore off her clothes, tying her exercise pants around her mouth in a gag. She says she tried to scream, but he overpowered her.

And then, she says, amid the detritus of movie posters and plastic superheroes in his office, he raped her.

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When women experience sexual harassment or abuse, it often comes with threats of further harm and blacklisting if they speak about out it.

The USA TODAY survey of women in Hollywood found that 76% said they didn’t report what happened to them.

Densmore is among them.

She says her agent told her that he had friends in the Los Angeles Police Department and that he could blackball her in the industry if she spoke up.

“When someone tells you that they can give you the thing that they want and you believe them, and then they tell you that if you don’t comply that they will ruin everything for you, that’s a nice little added bonus on the side,” Densmore says.

Today, Densmore’s agent has all but vanished. His once-active social media accounts have gone quiet.

The agency where he worked has closed. The Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists said the agency was no longer affiliated with the union after 2009.

USA TODAY reporters made numerous attempts to locate and contact him through listed phone numbers, social media, relatives, neighbors and former professional contacts. Reporters visited a recent address multiple times and sent requests for comment by certified mail. He has not responded. USA TODAY has not named him.

Reporters reviewed journal entries Densmore said she made at the time and interviewed a friend who confirmed Densmore told her about the incident in 2012.

USA TODAY also spoke with two other women who said they had similar experiences with the same agent. Both say he made the same types of threats to stop them from reporting. One woman asked not to be named out of fear for her safety.

The other, L.A.-based publicist Nasiha Rose, said he presented himself as a power agent and mentor when he reached out to her through a networking hotline nearly two decades ago.

After weeks of phone conversations that began with career advice before becoming increasingly personal, he persuaded Rose, then 21 and an aspiring screenwriter, to meet in person for the first time for a writing session at his apartment. When she arrived, she says, the lighting was dim and he had prepared dinner.

She accepted a glass of wine.

Soon after, Rose says, she felt nauseated and began to black out. He escorted her to the bed and began to take off her pants.

"I remember bits and pieces of what he was saying in that moment. 'You have to do this. I’m going to make you into a woman. We’re going to be powerful together,' " Rose says.

She says she managed to flee the apartment when he went to the bathroom.

"I woke up the next day to, like, 12 voicemail messages…” she says. "They were weird, started very angry that I left, calling me every name in the book. Halfway through he started getting more desperate, becoming apologetic. Then he was blaming me for everything, saying: 'Well, why did you come down here?' "

Rose says he continued to call her off and on for years, despite her attempts to stop him.

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Sexual assault occurs in all industries. But experts say the way Hollywood works makes it ripe for abuse.

Actresses, as well as nearly all behind-the-camera professionals, are individual contractors. Jobs are earned by relationships and word-of-mouth.

For up-and-coming actresses looking for representation, the situation can be even more extreme. Actors are the clients, but upstarts have little ability to fire an agent and shop around.

“Paradoxically, an agent at a smaller boutique agency tends to have more power over the client as opposed to a big agency,” says Violaine Roussel, author of Representing Talent: Hollywood Agents and the Making of Movies.

“It looks like a commercial relationship in which the client should be choosing the agent, but at the small agencies they can’t.”

The traditional human resources infrastructure of corporate America does not exist for most of the Hollywood industry. The only recourse is to go to police, or a union if the actress is a member.

The lack of reporting structure adds to a repercussion of sexual harassment that University of Oregon psychology professor Jennifer Freyd called “institutional betrayal.”

In her research, Freyd found that the most dangerous form of sexual harassment is perpetrated by those who have direct power to harm a victim’s career.

“Part of it is that you are fundamentally in this betrayal situation," Freyd says. "You need to trust them, you need to depend on them, but they don’t have your back and they’re hurting you,” Freyd said.

“On the one hand, if the person harassing you is a stranger you can just take protective action. You can run away or say ‘stop it.’ But if the person who is betraying you has power over you, if you take that action you might lose the necessary relationship.”

For Densmore, the betrayal hit instantly.

“What he busted for me was the Hollywood fairy tale, and actually I’m grateful for that.

This has been the norm, and it’s not going to be anymore. We’re going to change the environment. I believe that, and also why I’m willing to speak up.”